RSN to take part in 'blockade' of North Korea?

IAF SG

US wants Malacca Straits countries, including Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, to join. Greg Anslery. New Zealand Herald.
Jul 17, 2003

Under the shadow of what Pyongyang described as "the dark cloud of nuclear war", 11 nations have agreed to begin training in the Pacific and Indian Oceans for naval interception of North Korean ships.

"Such a brigandish naval blockade [by] the US is as dangerous an act as igniting a new war on the Korean Peninsula," the state-run Rodong Sinmun thundered.

In Brisbane, where 100 senior officials gathered last week to push forward US President George W. Bush's new Proliferation Security Initiative, the anger and threats from Pyongyang failed to deter Western determination to block trade in weapons of mass destruction.

US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and Disarmament, John Bolton, a hard-line advocate of interception of ships, aircraft and land transport, said America was ready for action "right now".

The warning extends beyond North Korea to Iran - a fellow member of Washington's "axis of evil" also believed to be developing nuclear weapons - and other countries suspected of selling or buying weapons of mass destruction or their components.

"The reality is that weapons of mass destruction-related materials, technologies and expertise are more accessible today than ever," Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told the Brisbane meeting.

President Bush's plan to search and seize materials and missiles is part of
America's iron-fisted approach to proliferation and terrorism launched after the September 11 terror attacks.

Announced in Poland in May, membership of the initiative is confined to the US, Britain, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Poland, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.

But Washington has made it clear it will want others to join, particularly countries whose territorial waters cover the choke points of international trade, such as the Malacca Straits separating Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff discussed the initiative with Mr Downer in Adelaide last month, and said Wellington supported multilateral efforts to end North Korea's nuclear weapons programme and weapons of mass destruction proliferation.

But he said New Zealand had not sought to join the Brisbane meeting and was not involved in talks on the proposal.

Under the agreement reached last Thursday, joint exercises involving warships, submarines and patrol and strike aircraft will be conducted as part of a new global effort against illicit weapons shipments.

There is a strong reluctance for any naval operations to be described as a blockade, and disagreement exists between the partners on the legal authority to stop and search ships on the high seas.

Australia and other members of the initiative feel bound by article two of the 1958 Convention of the High Seas, which bans any bid by any nation to impose its sovereignty in international waters, and which could view seizures of North Korean ships as piracy.

The Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations has also published legal advice that countries that have not signed the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty can legally ship nuclear material under international law.

North Korea has quit the treaty, although its withdrawal has not yet been formally accepted by the International Atomic Energy Association.

There is the further problem of materials that can be used equally for peaceful purposes and for biological and chemical weapons - a problem which required the United Nations to pass a special resolution banning the import of thousands of dual-use materials to Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War.

Instead, most initiative members want to strengthen and use existing laws covering their territorial waters, air space, road and rail systems under which they can deny entry to suspect vessels and aircraft, or stop, board and seize them if they wish.

If necessary, and if the support of such key players as China and Russia can be won, these countries would push for extensions to international law, possibly through the International Maritime Organisation and support from the UN.

There are also strong doubts about the feasibility of forcing suspect aircraft to land, an element of the initiative specifically included by Washington after US intelligence reports that North Korea exported 1300 km-range Rodong missiles to Iran in six airfreight shipments earlier this year.

But the US believes it already has sufficient authority under existing international law to block North Korean weapons of mass destruction exports on the high seas, using provisions for the right of self-defence, and in circumstances in which a ship was not sailing under a national flag or where the country under whose flag a vessel was registered gave permission.

Some ships already have been intercepted: a North Korean vessel carrying missiles en route to Yemen, a ferry believed to be smuggling missile parts and intelligence blocked from leaving Wonsan by Japan, and the Pong Su, seized with a load of heroin by the Australian SAS.

This week South Korea claimed Pyongyang had sufficient plutonium for several bombs.

The US also believes North Korea may now be able to mount nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles able to strike as far as Japan.

Apart from the immediate threat to potential targets, other major players such as China fear Japan, South Korea and Taiwan could go nuclear in response, lifting the stakes immeasurably.

Analysts have warned that no one can ever predict North Korean intentions with any certainty and that if the interception of its ships was regarded as a final link in the chain of containment, Kim may see no alternative to war.

Although the North's numerically stronger but oil-starved and technologically-outclassed forces would probably be defeated, losses on both sides would be enormous, and a united Korea under American protection would alarm China.

Even collapse and reunification without war would be destabilising: the cost, far higher than the reunification of Germany, would cripple Korea.

For these reasons South Korea declined the invitation to join the Bush initiative, and opted instead for an alternative diplomatic push.

President Roh Moo-hyun met Chinese Premier Hu Jintao in Beijing this week and agreed to "peacefully resolve the issue through dialogue".

China will be a crucial player because of its influence in Pyongyang and its supplies of coal and food, particularly as North Korea prepares for next winter.

Beijing has already demonstrated its loss of patience with Pyonyang with a three-day suspension of aid earlier this year. But throwing a possible naval blockade into the ring could launch a whole new ball game.
NZ Herald

IAF SG

In that case, North Korean ships will have to travel by the north pole Wink

Should RSN takes part, it's about time we buy Arrows from israel.

duotiga83 SG

Shld we join, is the 1st combat operation for us, but then we definitely need Israeli Arrow Air defense system Neutral

IAF SG

So does our neighbour across the causeway..nah, they'd rather buy from the ruskkies

SingaporeMacross SG

Aiyah, we seize the north korean illegal arms and keep for ourself!! Mr. Green

Arena SG

good idea.. hehe.. but the next day, US will be coming after us

Viper52 SG

Heres an interesting analysis of DPRK's nuclear ambitions...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3073677.stm

The intelligence 'black hole' over N Korea

By Jon Wolfsthal
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

How much confidence can anyone have about intelligence estimates regarding North Korea's nuclear programme, in light of the row over Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction?
Unfortunately, for policymakers and the public alike, the answer is not much.

North Korea is widely considered by intelligence officers as the hardest target to crack in terms of reliable information, and there are political pressures at work within the Bush administration that raise the spectre that intelligence may also be manipulated for ideological purposes

Certain facts are not in dispute. North Korea does possess the means to produce plutonium, a key ingredient in nuclear weapons.

The country has one operating nuclear reactor in the city of Yongbyon, that can produce enough plutonium for approximately one nuclear weapon per year.

In addition, North Korea has demonstrated the ability to produce and purify plutonium, having produced at least small amounts in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Lastly, North Korea is known to have possessed some 8,000 fuel rods used to power its reactor in the early 1990s, and which are thought to have contained between 25-30kg of plutonium, enough for 5 or 6 nuclear weapons.

Beyond that, however, things are less certain.

The two important issues from a security standpoint are whether North Korea had nuclear weapons before the start of the current nuclear crisis in October 2002, and whether the country has been able to produce nuclear weapons since.

As for previous nuclear production, there is some evidence that the communist state produced enough plutonium at Yongbyon to produce one or two nuclear weapons.

The reactor was shut down in 1989 for over 2 months, time enough for North Korea to remove the plutonium-containing fuel from the facility and extract enough plutonium for a weapon.

No outside inspectors were on site at the time, so no independent facts are known for sure.

North Korea acknowledged shutting the reactor down, but claimed that only a small number of fuel elements were removed, and that only 100g of plutonium were purified.

More than 4kg of plutonium would be needed to produce a nuclear weapon.

Samples from the material produced by North Korea suggest it has not provided a complete picture of its activities before the start of nuclear inspections in 1992.

But investigations do not prove definitively one way or the other that Pyongyang was able to produce enough material for a nuclear device.

Current crisis

As for the current nuclear stand-off, there has been a great deal of confusion regarding what North Korea has been able to accomplish since nuclear inspectors were expelled from the country in December 2002.

US intelligence officials have confirmed that they have observed - via spy satellite - movement between the facility holding the 8,000 plutonium-laden fuel rods and the facility where the plutonium would be extracted.

To confirm that such extraction is taking place, however, intelligence services would need physical evidence, either from reliable human or electronic eavesdropping, or through the detection of tell-tale gasses that are released when nuclear material from a reactor undergoes reprocessing or extraction.

The chemical processing of spent fuel from a reactor releases Krypton-75 gas, which is hard to contain and mask.

The United States is thought to deploy Krypton-75 detectors in South Korea and in the waters off North Korea, as well as on airborne platforms such as spy planes.

While press reports suggest that Krypton has recently been detected by US officials, no public confirmation of this has been made.

Moreover, even if such a gas were detected, it would not give experts any hard information about how many of the 8,000 fuel elements had been processed, or how much plutonium had been extracted.

North Korea has added to this confusion - or perhaps tried to take advantage of it - by stating on several occasions that it has already begun reprocessing its spent fuel.

There is even the possibility that the release of Krypton gas could be deliberate, and part of a deception effort by North Korea to convince the world that it has crossed the nuclear threshold.

If Iraq helped show the world that intelligence is an art and not a hard science, then North Korea should reinforce the point in spades.

North Korea is a black hole for intelligence, and rarely does anything reliable come out of the hermit kingdom.

Given recent revelations about the handling of intelligence in Iraq, careful readers of developments in North Korea will want to parse every word at least once if not more.

Jon Wolfsthal is the Co-Author of Deadly Arsenals: Tracking Weapons of Mass Destruction. He also served as the US Government on-site monitor in North Korea in 1995-1996.

Viper52 SG

While I absolutely loathe the leadership in Pyongyang and heartily support "regime change" there, I do believe the world has to tread carefully over this.

Unfortunately, the Bush regime and "tread carefully" are two mutually exclusive events.

duotiga83 SG

when i read this, kinda worried what will happen when we join the "allied" force Neutral

NathanG5 SG

so we're wif the "GD GUYS" now eh...

not to worry..i say it in a more selfish Singaporean way..as long as we're wif the majority we're safe..at most kena monthly suicide bombing aircraft hijacking..bla blah blah...

Viper52 SG

I see it more as a "bad guy" vs "even worse guy" thing

thomasct SG

Viper 52 , you are 101 % right -on with your comments. Smile Smile

USA is one of the "" better "" of the bad guys around Exclamation

Still a " bad " guy ,

IAF SG

We now live in a world where most major conflicts are viewed thru' the lens of religion, where certain groups of people simply abhor the idea other people, whom they consider to be infidels, hunting down murderous thugs jus becos those thugs happen to be believers too...

A North Korean war should it break out, will perhaps be one of the last black & white conflicts. The world should rightfully unite against the regime that is a real menace to its own people and peace loving nations.

Kim Jong Il is no Dr Evil. He is the big fat bastard.

NathanG5 SG

wahaha..much worst...big big bad guy wif nukes...shitty

Atobe SG

If the world should unite against all regimes that are "a real menace to its own people" then a standard of measure must be established by the United Nations to sanction such actions.

This will affect any Government that terrorize its Opposition Parties into oblivion, promoting Single Party Political dominance, perpetuation of dynastic rule, cult personalities to the exclusion of democratic process, and activities that deny the Citizens a clear right to its basic Human Rights to the Freedom of Choice that is unhampered by any form of strong armed influences.

This will cut out a whole swath of governments through Asia, Africa, and some parts of South America.

The UN will then impose a minimum standard of political process that protect the welfare and basic rights of the human race on this earth; and set the minimum standard of how Government should behave towards its Citizens.

Viper52 SG

Is there even such a thing as a black and white conflict? As we have discussed, even the acts of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany can be seen through a different perspective and their reasons for starting their wars can be justified (German being bankrupted and humiliated by the WWI victors; Japan being punished for wanting her cut in the profits of colonialism). And on the Allied side, are they totally white in the black-and-white conflict? If anyone thinks so I have but 2 words: Josef Stalin.

Seen through a North Korean perspective, all they want is a unification of the Korean Peninsula and the end of what they see as a humiliating division of their people and their land, and the ending of what they see as an occupation of half of the Korean people's land by a foreign power backed by a puppet regime who is interested in swallowing all of it. And their pursuit of WMDs is justified to them by the fact that the "foreign occupier" has much much more of that capability. Deluded? Wrong? Distorted? Perhaps to you and me and to almost everyone else, but thats how the regime sees it, and I can understand why they see it that way, even though I don't agree.

My point is this: Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, is black-and-white, everything is a different shade of grey.